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The ultra-competitive Indian TV industry hit a new low on Monday night when a reporter tried to remove lapel mike of a rival channel from a man being interviewed on a live show.

It did not matter that the man, Varun Thakur, was grieving the murder of his eight-year-old son who was found in school in a pool of blood.

The reporter, an employee of Republic TV, has not been identified. She was desperate to get Thakur’s time, who was being interviewed at his home, by a rival channel Times Now.

Thakur was scheduled to speak to Times Now till 9.15 pm and then switch to Republic TV.

But he spent a little more time on Times Now and then announced that he was cutting short the TV interviews as he had to attend to a very important guest, who had come to meet him.

It was then the Republic reporter decided to grab him by his collar.

Viewers of the Times Noack w show were baffled to see a pair of hands cutting into the frame to remove the mike and another pair of hands restoring them.

There were five instances where a hand could be seen trying to remove the microphone from Thakur’s lapel.

Activist Tehseen Poonawalla shared a behind the scenes video of the ugly incident.

It shows the Republic reporter distracting and arguing with Thakur when he was on the live show. As she tries to snatch away the mike, she is pulled back another unidentified woman, who restrains her. The agitated TimesNow crew can also be seen protesting.

The incident drew widespread condemnation as a transgression of media ethics.

Thakur’s son Pradyuman was murdered by a school worker, who tried to sexually assault him in the washroom, and then slashed his throat. The unfortunate boy died of his injuries in the hospital later.

An enterprising man rented a crow in Nashik, Maharashtra, to help devout Hindus perform ancestor worship.

The crow he handled took a bite from the offerings made by his customers. For each bite of the crow he charged Rs 10.

Hindus worship their ancestors annually in a 16-day period called Pitru Paksha, which ended on September 19.

They offer prayers and perform rituals to ensure their ancestors find peace in heaven.

A key element of the ritual is cooking a multi-course meal and offering it to crows, which are considered links to the departed souls.

But the expansion of cities have destroyed the habitat of these birds making them a rarity. So, during this period many struggle to find crows to accept the ritual offering, creating a novel business opportunity.

While it was known that crows were being offered for hire in this period, the practice was documented for the first time this year.

Video has emerged from India of Bengal tigers attacking and injuring a white tiger at a biological park.

The white tiger succumbed to its injuries later.

In video shot by a visitor, filmed on Sunday (September 17), two Bengal tigers can be seen mauling the helpless white animal. A third Bengal tiger can also be seen in the video.

In total, three Bengal tigers attacked and injured two white tigers in the incident at the park.

The two white tigers had accidentally walked into a separate enclosure where the Bengal tigers were kept at Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP).

A fight immediately broke out between the two groups, with the Bengal tigers particularly targeting the weaker of the intruder before a group of shocked visitors.

The park officials struggled to separate the tigers and restore peace.

Santosh Kumar, executive director of the park, said the white tigers may have stepped out of the enclosure when the staff opened the gates to let safari buses out. The big cats managed to walk along safari buses without drawing attention.

The lapse came to officials’ notice only when a fight broke out among the animals.

Santosh said: "Our staffers are careful while operating gates. But as Sunday was a busy day and three vehicles had lined up, they may have failed to notice the tigers stepping out."

Last month, a zebra had died after falling into a ditch dug by BBP staffers to erect a pole in an enclosure.

Two girls flew into the air and did a somersault after their scooter collided head-on with a car.

A third girl, who was riding with them, also fell on the road, and all three luckily escaped with just minor injuries.

The incident, which took place in Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh, on September 21, was caught on a CCTV camera.

The footage shows the girls overtaking a jeep on a busy road. They fail to notice a white car coming from the opposite direction and collide with it.

The force of the impact hurls the girls in the air and two of them fall on the ground after a mid-air tumble.

The local police have registered a case and are probing. They said the girls may be guilty of negligent driving and were in violation of a traffic rule, which prohibits three riders on a two-wheeler vehicle.

A truck carrying 229 LPG cylinders was burnt to ashes after it caught fire and set off a chain of explosions.

The incident occurred near Nainital at 11.30 am on Monday.

The truck was transporting cylinders from Haldwani to Almora in the Kumaon division, when its engine caught fire. The driver and his assistant saw smoke rising from the bonnet while crossing the Birbhatti Bridge.

They stopped the truck immediately and tried to put out the fire in vain. The fire spread quickly singing them before they could flee the spot.

It then spread to the container, which had the packed cylinders, setting them off in a massive series of explosions. Some of cargo flew out of the truck, which had turned into a fireball, and exploded again in the vicinity adding to the damage.

Five fire tenders and 15 fire fighters fought for six hours to douse the flames.

The incident led to huge traffic jams as officials shut down National Highway 87, where the incident occurred. The Birbhatti bridge has been closed and would be opened only after an evaluation by structural engineers from IIT-Roorkee, said officials.

Dipendra Kumar Chaudhary, district magistrate of Nainital, told The Times of India: “Safety measures in gas plants and transport vehicles would be reviewed to ensure that such incidents don’t happen again.”

The truck driver and his assistant have been admitted to a hospital in Nainital with burn injuries.

A 17-year-old student drowned in a pond near Bangalore, India, just as his friends were clicking group selfies.

A photo taken during the selfie session caught Vishwas drowning in the background. But his friends, who were busy striking poses for the camera, failed to notice him drowning.

Twenty-five students from National College had gone trekking to a hill near Bangalore on September 23.

After the students came down the hill at 2 pm, a few of them went to a nearby pond to swim and take selfies.

Vishwas, who did not know how to swim, slipped and fell into the water while posing for the photos, and drowned.

They noticed that he was missing after an hour. Sumanth, a student in the group, said, “After swimming, we left to visit a temple, and realised that Vishwas was not around.”

While a few went to search for him, a classmate, who was replaying the new selfies on his mobile phone, noticed that Vishwas had drowned in the tank in a photo.

The group then rushed to the pond and fished his body out.

The police have registered a case of unnatural death and are probing the incident.

“The students ignored a signboard put up by local villagers saying that no one should enter the water,“ a police officer said.Vishwas’ father Govindappa, who rushed to the spot, has lodged a complaint with police alleging that negligence by the National College management had cost his son’s life.

In a rare surgery, a team of veterinary doctors removed a 300 gm tumour from the mouth of a python at the Kamla Nehru zoo in Indore, India.

The zoo staff had noticed that the python had stopped eating and alerted the doctors, who found a rapidly growing tumour in the lower jaw of its mouth. They tried to control it through medicines and decided on the surgery after the approach failed.

The animal would have died had it been left untreated, said doctors.

The surgery – a first in India – posed many challenges.

“There was no information on how to administer anaesthesia. We struggled to figure out the dosage and route,” said Dr Uttam Yadav, director of the zoo, who was also part of the operating team.

The doctors researched, consulted several experts, even spoke to their peers in Japan to plan the surgery.

A team of senior veterinarians led by Yadav and Dr BP Shukla from Mhow veterinary college performed the complex operation, which lasted for four hours.

The snake was administered anaesthesia at a spot four inches above its anus. Though the reptile took one-and-a-half hour to fall unconscious, the doctors did not increase the dosage, fearing for its life.

They then cut through the mouth to reach the tumour, which turned out to be non-malignant.

The 27-kg, 13-feet and 12-year-old snake is recovering well and is expected to regain its full functionality soon.

The surgery was carried out in the last week of August but was announced only recently.

Seven girls in school uniform were caught on camera crossing a flooded river just holding each for support.

They were desperate to get to their school on the other side of the river Barnai to write their exams.

A video shows the girls wading through waist deep water of the river, which rises to their chest in certain spots. They cross the entire width of the river risking their lives, holding up their books wrapped in a plastic sheet.

The girls are from the village Bade Damali about 25 kilometres from the Central Indian city of Ambikapur.

Bade Damali and a several other villages in the area get marooned during the monsoons when Barnai swells due to heavy downpour.

People of these villages get cut off from rest of the district and have no option but to wait for the flood waters to recede before resuming their normal lives. The wait may last a few days and sometimes extend to a few weeks as well.

Media reports said the government’s campaign on education had raised awareness and the girls prefer opted to brave the flood than miss their exams.

Villagers complain that their longstanding demand for a bridge across the river has not been met.

An elephant was rescued from a 18-feet well after a 36-hour long operation in Chattisgarh, India. The adult female elephant was part of an 18-member herd, which had gone to a village in Surajpur district, to raid crops on the night of November 12.

The villagers woke up from their sleep hearing the noise and managed to chase away the herd by lighting up torches and waiving them at the intruders.

As the scared elephants ran back to the nearby Pratappur forest, one of them fell into a dry well in the darkness.

The villagers heard the cries of the herd, which had surrounded the well, and stood there screaming in distress.

They thought a calf may have fallen into the well as it had happened a few times in the past. One of them managed to flash a light into the well and was astonished to see an adult female elephant inside.

The villagers alerted the local forest officials who rushed to the spot and started the rescue operation on November 13 morning, by which time the herd had retreated to the forest. They brought in two excavators and dug a path to the well. But the elephant, which was injured in a front leg, refused to climb up.

They then brought in two cranes and hauled up the elephant after tranquilising it. They wrapped a lifting sling around the stomach of the behemoth and harnessed it to the cranes, which lifted the elephant and placed it on a truck.

Forest officials said the animal would be taken to a nearby rehabilitation camp and treated for its injuries. It would be sent back to the forest later, they said.

Throughout the marathon effort, the officials kept the animal hydrated and fed it fresh paddy, which it refused, and jaggery, which it ate.

A traffic policeman in Indore, India, who dances his way to managing traffic has been grabbing headlines.

Whistling constantly, he twists and turns in style, and does his famous moonwalk to steer the waiting vehicles.

Ranjeet Singh, 38, who has been with the traffic police since 2005, says his moves have a method – to create awareness on traffic rules.

“I could not bear to see so many youngsters dying or getting maimed. So I hit upon a way to send the message,” he says.

Though Ranjeet Singh had never danced before, the idea came to him naturally. He started with small steps, refined his moves gradually and went on to perfect the hugely popular moonwalk technique.

Initially, the response from the commuters was mixed, but now 90 percent of the people are supportive, he says.

If he sees anyone breaking a traffic rule, he pulls them aside and counsels, asking them to think about their families. “It works, people promise to change and they do,” he says.

The city of Indore has recognised that Ranjeet Singh has done a remarkable job spreading awareness on traffic rules and in helping reducing accidents, which used to claim more than 500 people annually.

His bosses are happy that he has improved the image of the police.Scorching sun or pouring rain, there is nothing to stop Ranjeet Singh from dancing in the streets.

Where does he get his energy? “I love my work and I love my country. I see it as a patriotic duty to reduce accidents. That gives me energy,” he says.

In his free time, Ranjeet Singh also doubles up as a motivational speaker and mentors new hires of the police department.

Indian Christians celebrated Christmas with caution on Monday following a spate of attacks from radical Hindu groups on festivities.

Hindu groups have targeted the run-up to Christmas celebrations across the country alleging that the festivities were just a cloak for missionaries to convert Hindus forcefully.

On December 21, Hindu activists allegedly disrupted singing of Hindi carols at the Aligarh Church of Ascension, a tradition which goes back 1858. A small group of men forced their way inside and kicked the musical instruments and shouted anti-Christian slogans.

Hardline Hindu activists had also sent letters warning Christian schools in Aligarh against involving Hindu students in Christmas activities.

On December 19, Hindu extremists allegedly raided a community centre in a village in Pratapgarh, Rajasthan, where Christmas celebrations were being held. They threw copies of Bible and posters of Jesus Christ to ground and roughed up participants.

On December 14, police detained an entire choir of 35 members, which was going door to door singing carols and celebrating Christmas in Satna, Madhya Pradesh. A Hindu militant organisation alleged that they were converting Hindus in the region.

On December 9, Hindu activists allegedly attacked and vandalised a prayer hall in Coimbatore disrupting Christmas celebrations. A pastor, Karthik, suffered an injury to his head, and a woman suffered a fracture, and a few others suffered minor injuries.

There have been other incidents as well in which even families praying inside their homes have allegedly been targeted.

Taking note of the attacks, Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, the president of Catholic Bishops Conference of India, (CBCI), said the minority community was losing faith in the Narendra Modi-led BJP government.

The Cardinal also pointed out that attacks by Hindu groups targeting Christians across India have increased since the Hindu nationalist BJP came to power in 2014.

Cardinal Cleemis also led a delegation to meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the country’s top security official, and complained that the police were playing a biased role and not acting against the attackers.

A team of scuba divers held an underwater prayer meet to pay homage to fishermen killed by Cyclone Ockhi.

Twelve divers – 10 of them drawn from the affected fishing community – dived to a depth of eight metres near Kovalam in South India and prayed for 22 minutes.

The multi-religious team read prayers according to their individual faiths from laminated sheets of paper. They prayed for those who died and those who are still missing at sea.

Severe tropical cyclonic storm Ockhi which struck parts of South India later November killed 65 fishermen, according to official estimates. Scores of fishermen, who went missing in sea, are yet to be traced.

The under water prayer meet was organised by Friends of Marine Life (FML), a local NGO, and Bond Ocean Safari, an underwater adventure sports group.

FML coordinator Robert Panipilla said the prayer meet was held to comfort the grieving families. “We also prayed for the Almighty to make the officials respond better during future emergencies,” he added.

The fishermen’s families have been protesting saying the Indian government failed to trace the missing men as its response to the disaster was delayed and lethargic.

Director of Bond Ocean Safari Jackson Peter said the prayer meet also helped to draw attention to climate change. “We had never seen a cyclone on the Indian east coast lining the Arabian Sea. We are yet to wake up to the dangers of climate change,” he said.

Mumbai's local trains carry more than eight million people a day, a population of a small country.They are also among the world’s most overcrowded trains and tourists are cautioned not to take them during peak hours.

Recently, it was so crowded one day, even a veteran daily commuter, Prem Tiwari, 29, could not catch a train. Instead, he took a video of the shocking crush, which went viral.

Tiwari, who works as a software engineer, has been taking trains for the last 15 years. Despite the long experience the daily horror has not diminished.

He spends five hours every day in the crowded trains to get to work and return. “It is so packed, people crush against my stomach and chest… It becomes hard to breath, he says.

A bigger challenge is to get into the train and then get out during the peak hours.

Nearly 4,500 passengers are packed into these trains during peak hours, as against a carrying capacity of 1,700.

But there are ways to manage.

Tiwari usually takes the train in the opposite direction to reach the last stop and starts the reverse journey afresh. “The crowd would be much less there, I will at least find a place to stand,” he says.

Another common tactic is to run parallel to the train on the long platform and jump in before it comes to a stop.

“This is a high-speed chase and risky. There is a chance of colliding against the electric poles,” he says.

The overcrowding, the jostling and the high-speed chase are a perfect recipe for accidents. More than 3,000 people lose their lives while commuting every year.

“I am fortunate that I have never seen a live accident. But I have seen people being carried on a stretcher. A friend in college broke into five pieces after he came under a train,” says Tiwari.

Tiwari points out that officials have added more coaches and increased frequency of trains. But the number of commuters always grows in proportion and it looks like more of the same, he adds.

Tiwari, who sings and whistles, in his pasttime runs a youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIhMGfGe-Oo_1vVu0dwrGHA

Hundreds of villages organised cockfights, defying an official ban, as part of traditional celebrations during Sankranti, a harvest festival, which concluded on January 17.

Thousands of people flocked to watch the illegal bloodsport that was widely held in the coastal districts of the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

On January 8, the State High Court had warned the officials to enforce the ban on cockfighting strictly.

Despite the heavy presence of officials and the police at the venues, there was no let-up in cockfighting, which has been opposed by several animal welfare organisations in India.

Activists say roosters’ suffer grievous injuries due to sharp knives tied to their legs before the fight.

The fight continues till one of roosters is killed or maimed.

Thousands of roosters – costing from USD 200 to USD 2,500 depending on breed – take part in these fights. Owners train their birds for several months, which are raised on a nutritious diet of almonds, cashews, minced meat and eggs.

N G Jayasimha, managing director of Human Society International, said: “Cockfighting is not only cruel to animals but also encourages gambling and child labour. A practice that glorifies illegal activities should have no place in a civil society.”

Cockfighting generates a revenue of USD 150 million to organisers with illegal betting contributing a major portion of it. Viewers can be seen placing bets on their favourite roosters without any fear from the police, who can usually be spotted in the vicinity.

Senior police officials said they made a serious attempt to enforce the ban and had arrested over 2,000 organisers and gamblers in just two districts of the state.

But media reports said official efforts failed to make any impact on the ground.

The districts were dotted with hundreds of cockfighting arenas, which had made seating arrangements for thousands of people coming from different parts of the state.

Eager organisers also showed reporters how they tied sharp knives to roosters’ legs and allowed filming of the fights as well.

Anjaneya Reddy, a resident of Bhimavaram said, “Cockfighting is part of our culture. It cannot be wished away with a law. It is stoo popular to be banned”

A male leopard torn between a female companion and a chicken in a cage found the tasty snack too tempting to resist.

But it was not an easy decision to make.

While the bird lured him, his warning signals probably flashed suggesting that someone had placed a meal to trap him.

An unappetising prospect that also meant a definite separation from an attractive female he had been mating with recently.

But the chicken awaited and the enticement was strong. He tried to sneak into the cage but changed his mind. Dithering, he leapt in and ejected himself instantly before the trap door could close.

This happened a few times and the leopard grew increasingly impatient. He finally went for the kill and got trapped.

The drama was captured by a camera placed by Friends of Animal Welfare Trust, a not-for-profit organisation in Gujarat, India.Following a complaint from the people of Khambla village that a leopard had been stalking them, the Animal Welfare Trust had placed a cage to catch it.

After the male leopard was captured, two volunteers went for a closer look, but retreated when they sensed the presence of a second animal.

As the male leopard sat cooling his heels inside the cage, his female companion appeared. Heartbroken, she spent sometime sniffing around the cage and went away.

Jatin Rathod of the Animal Welfare Trust said he was surprised to come across two leopards instead of one and talked to the villagers to piece together the story.

The female leopard had recently lost her two cubs in a fire accident at a sugarcane field. After the tragedy, she was ready to mate again and had found a male leopard, which unfortunately fell for the chicken-in-the-cage trick.

The male leopard was released in a nearby forest. A few days later the volunteers managed to trap the female leopard as well, which was also released in the same forest.